Our Mission

We are firmly committed to promoting the use of the scythe, a tool which addresses the following issues:

Climate change;

Poverty in developing countries;

Israeli/Palestinian tensions;

Overgrown gardens;

Missing socks.

Okay, not really. As El Presidente says:

You can argue about peak oil; you can argue about soil compaction; you can argue about noise pollution, and even obesity, but more than anything else, the scythe is an amazingly simple and efficient tool that deserves to be used for sheer pleasure.

It’s peaceful. It’s meditative. It’s like there’s no other group within 50 miles that’s doing what you’re doing. Well, chances are you’re right. But we’re doing it, and you might like to as well.

We don’t have a mission. We do it because we enjoy it: the rhythmic, ringing swish of steel on grass; seeing the grass fall in a neat row as each swathe is cleared quietly; listening to the other sounds around you while you work. And we like some help getting our own mowing done. Sometimes there’s even a snack in it afterwards.

We’re not stoopid – we know that jumping in a car to drive a few kilometres to help someone cut some grass may well end up using more fuel than firing up a brush cutter. We do walk or car pool where we can, but we’re not under any illusions. It’s more about helping out, sharing skills and getting experience, which we can then take home with us.

Same deal with this site. We’re not experts, and we may not even agree with one another – you may even find that we publish conflicting opinions on this site. But we’re getting the grass cut, we’re enjoying it, and we’re happy to offer whatever help we can.

It would be remiss of any scythe mower to not give a nod to those Luddites par excellence who have gone before, especially in more contemporary times to David Tresmer and Peter Vido, who have made enormous efforts to ensure the tools and techniques were not lost. On the flip side, we could probably also give some kudos to folks like Tim Berners-Lee, who also had a teeny bit to do with making information widely available.